Dbq Monument Analysis

Do you know what it takes to have a monument made in honor of a person or event? Have you ever thought about how agencies decide who get a monument or where they should put it? The factors an agency or group should consider when memorializing an event or person, and when creating a monument should be the location of the site, the architectural design, and lastly consider if the monument would be seen as offensive in the sense of disrespecting a religion, culture, or intentionally intimidating a race. The placement and location selected for a monument is a significant factor to consider when contemplating the creation of a monument. For instance the Lincoln Memorial was built at the National Mall, in Washington D.C., a place that is practically

The same goes for monuments, in order to make one, you need to take into consideration if the monument is likely to be considered offensive by people. A strong example of this being the Christopher Columbus monument at Riverside Park in Easton, Pennsylvania. A photograph of this monument (source B) shows Christopher Columbus standing tall looking strong and proud. It got me thinking how people must feel about this statue, because in America we are taught at a young age that Christopher Columbus “sailed the ocean blue, in 1942…” and found America. However, he didn’t discover new land, he mistakenly found land that was already inhabited by Native American and Indian tribes. He then went on and forced his people amongst the land and was very cruel to the native peoples, he resorted to violence, enslavement, and forced the conversion of Christianity onto the natives. This as led to questions such as why do we idolize a man that stole from a people, raped their women, and then forced enslavement upon them. How do you think the Native Americans still around feel, that the man that destroyed their home and people is being looked up to as if he were a hero? Another case similar to this would have to be our greatly cherished Mount Rushmore. “Mount Rushmore bothers me. It was bad enough that white men drove the Sioux from hills they still hold sacred; did they have to carve faces all over them too? It’s easy to feel affection for Mount Rushmore’s strange grandeur, but only if you forget where it is and how it got there. To me, it’s too close to graffiti.” This quote is from Lawrence Downes’ online opinion article, “Waiting for Crazy Horse” (source C). Downes is explaining, the very people that stole land from the Sioux, land that to this day they still hold sacred, was terrible and extremely